About a month ago my roommate decided he would put a Volcano heatsink and fan setup On an Asus A7V133 with an Athalon 1200mhz cpu that I let him use after upgrading to a newer system. Not really sure what he did but the edges of the core are completely disintegrated up to an 1/8 of an inch into the core the motherboard, 512megs of micron PC133 ram, one NvidiaGeforce DDR/DVI video card andnot one but two power supplies are now dead. How he didn't see the damage to the core when he put the new heatsink on is beyond me, and then there's still a dead mb, mem, video card and 2 power supplies. I know it ain't the worst you've heard, but to think one of these shims could have saved a decent second system (and common sense on my roomates part) makes it my worst experience.

OK, here's a good one for you. I wish I was making this up...but unfortunately it's true. A couple years ago when the Athlon just came out in non-slot A format, I purchased an Athlon 750. When I unpacked the CPU, I remember looking at it and wondering, hmm...I wonder why those little rubber shipping pads are stuck on there? Assuming they would just interfere with the operation of the heatsink, I pried them off and proceeded to install the heatsink.

I'm sure you can imagine how easy it is to chip a CPU when the rubber pads aren't there! After a quick check on the web (from another computer, of course) I realized the true function of the strange rubber "shipping" pads.

Hope you all got a laugh out of this one. I promise, I'm not typically that much of an idiot!

Just started a new job, and my first paycheck I bought a 2200+ from there. 10% over cost, so it wasn't too bad. MSI motherboard. I guess I just wasn't used to the AMD chips, as I installed everything (I thought I did a great job). Went to power on. Hmm... Maybe I forgot something. Nope. Rebuilt the damn thing 3 or 4 times. Then I thought.... Oh ****.

yea. 2200+ down the drain. Since it was my fault, I couldn't get it replaced. I had to wait another month just to buy a replacement (why not, I already had all the other parts). This time I did it right, and it works like a charm.

I learned my lesson. BE CAREFUL, and do everything gentle. Although the heatsink clips are damn tight on the bastard....

This story goes back a long time. It must have been around 1993/4. I'd successfully built my first PC and I was looking for an upgrade, something to give it a little more va-voom!

So whilst out shopping at the electronics capital of London town (that's Tottenham Court Road, for you out-of-towners), I spied a processor called Blue Lightning. It was made by IBM and I knew that this would be the idea upgrade to my 486 machine.

I bought the processor and took it home, excited about the upgrade. I had never done anything like this before, so I was very careful. I made sure that all the jumpers on the motherboard were set correctly, that none of the pins on the CPU were bent and that I was earthed.

The installation was a breeze (we didn't have CPU fans in those days, as processors did get that hot) and I stood back to admire my work. With the case still open, I flicked on the switch.

There was a slight cracking sound and the smell of something burning. Suddenly, a small spire of blue smoke rose out of the case. The chip was fried. I was very, very upset.

The downside was that this "Blue Lightning" was exactly that. It had managed to destroy the motherboard, fry the sound card, obliterate the video card. My god, everything needed to be replaced.

It took me ages to save up the money to buy new components to fix that mess but it taught me a very valuable lesson: You can be really careful and do your research but there's always going to be that element of doubt when you flick that switch. Always...

This story is about learning that heatsinks is required once you pass a certain mhz limit.

Used with a p2 350Mhz I got my new 1000Mhz athlon, covered with a cheap alpha sink. They told me in the store that "you should have a heatsink, with a heatsink the cpu runs cool and stable".

A short time later I was told to install my fathers new computer. This time I forgot to order a heatsink. Used to a non-heatsinked p2 350Mhz I decided that I could probably get windows installed without a heatsink... Just 40min installation... Sure the computer can handle that!?

Thoose (I guess all here) that knows the truth knows that a 1000mhz athlon passes 300 celcius without a heatsink. I learned this when the athlon exploded, SHOOTING the cpu core across the table, into my 19" monitor...

Luckily it did not hit the screen, but the plastic. A hole in the side of the monitor is a memorial of my stupidity. From that experience I have made myself absolutely sure to know what Im doing before doing even the most simple tasks.

I know it's past October 31, but I think my story(ies) are too awful to go unheard.. after typing this up and reading it to myself, it sounds like I made this up, I've lost so much in the last year and a half that you wouldn't believe it.

Let's start back in June 2001...when I was 16.
After a few years of saving up my birthday present cash and odd jobs, I had enough money to buy myself a new computer. I ended up buying the cheapest deal I could find, a 750 Duron on a K7SEM motherboard. Cost me $550CDN, and I was delighted to have it.
Along comes August, and one day my computer decides it won't boot; it is completely unresponsive to the power button. Fortunately for me, the system is on warranty, and I take it in for them to replace it. A month passes until I receive the system back, in working condition, and I learn that the motherboard has been destroyed and wiped the HDD too. (no money lost )
Now it's January, and as semester one ends, my computer decides it now doesn't have a hard drive, and I take the system in again, for repairs. They tell me the hard drive (Fujitsu 20G) has died and needs replacing. How am I going to survive exams without my computer!? Well, I actually got over 90% on all three exams, but still had no computer for the time being (ONLY 3 weeks this time, but no money lost )
OK, now it's July 2002, and my 1yr warranty has run out. My computer's power supply fan decides to stop spinning occasionally, and I need to 'jump start' it before I actually get the computer running any load. After a few days at my friends', my computer goes 'pop' and shuts down. No more booting, or even POST. I take out the power supply, and the computer store shows us the power supply power check method... with the clothes pin, and the psu is shot. Bought a new 300W and ran me $40. Minimal 1 day downtime.
A week later, the system crashes with one of those messed up sound card repeats ( the sound card produces the last 1/10 of a second in a loop for 10 seconds, then the system shuts down). No POST, no beeps. I take in the system to the store to get them to check it out, and they tell me they need to run diagnostics (more downtime! ). After one week they tell me the chipset is shot, and the whole motherboard needs replacement(no more warranty). The motherboard comes back, and they find out the CPU is dead too. No specific reason for either failure, the psu runs fine, and so does everything else in the box, except for those two components. I run to another store, buy a new ECS K7S5A, a Tt Volcano II, and an athalonxp 1700+ (pockets drained $250, the last several months of tutoring money, and chalked up another week of computer downtime).
2 weeks pass, when I'm enjoying a game of CS, and I hear the volcano picking up speed. After a good 3-4 seconds, the system shuts down instantly.. About the Volcano issue: usually it spins at 5000rpm, but in the last split second before it spins down, it was at over 10k (the pitch of the fan indicated about 12krpm, over an octave higher). Oh god, another issue... I power it up again, but this time it only lasts 15 seconds before it craps its pants again and the volcano breaks the sound barrier. This was the last POST I got out of the CPU, I took it to the store and the techie found it had slight discolouration on the underside, it had shifted from green to light brown, and therefore overheated, voiding the instore OEM warranty! GRR!
Now I have no money, and no working CPU!
Fortunately the next day I got a REAL job at a yacht club doing maintenance, full time, but I had to drag my butt out of bed at 530am to get to the bus and start work at 730. Not like I had anything to do at night any more, without a computer.. but still.
Luckily, payday is that friday (I started wednesday) so I had enough cash to run out and buy a CPU. I grabbed a duron 1200 one day after work(80 bucks), and after bussing all the way back, got home at 11:30 (one damn long day!). Collapsing into my chair, I install the CPU and find it is not working! The next day, after work, I took the cpu to the store, and the techie(who knows me very well by this point) takes several minutes to find a minute chip on the core, about half the thickness of one of the cpu pins on the underside has been taken off the top of the corner, and the CPU is worthless. "It must have been damaged in transit", says the techie. How could it have been damaged in transit, if I was holding it in my hand all the bloody way home!? .. the guy didn't listen, and I was again deprived of a computer. Next paycheck, 2wks later, I went out and bought a new cpu (duron 1300). I went home, installed it, and it worked! hurray! With all this money coming in(wow, jobs are COOL ), I got my friend to order me some hardware off eBay. KX7-333, 512DDR333, Tt XaserII 5000A case, MSI 4200, etc. All this stuff kept coming in and after a month I had bought a new cpu, making the system complete, and finishing off the old system so I could sell it. This time, I made sure on THEIR system that the CPU worked, and it did, so I was happy. The cpu was an XP2200($275). I get home, in goes the CPU, but no POST, no beep, only spinning fans. I take it in to the store, and the guy shows me that the CPU is still working, but apparently my BIOS isn't good enough. Abit tells me the KX7-333 needs a rework to accept the 2200, and I need to send them the motherboard to get it fixed. The postage cost me $25(yeah, I got ripped off) but they pay for the return. Back comes the motherboard 2wks later, and I swap the 1300 with the 2200, and it works! finally! Now I can sell my old computer, and pay off my friend who's been laid off because of job cuts. Now that it's November, my 1month OEM CPU warranty is void, and to my luck, I'm overclocking my XP (wow, this cpu runs cool, 35C idle...?) and one boot it decides to do nothing. No beep, nothing. Reset CMOS (again) and no luck. Off comes the Volcano 6cu+ and the cpu looks in perfect condition, no discolouration like the 1700, no chips like the 1200, nothing. I did notice one thing, though. The cpu temperature sensor seems to be at a slightly lower angle, and might not have been touching the underside of the cpu. This means... it was being heated through convection, not conduction, and would not have heated much at all! The system works with the 1300 duron, and after bending the sensor back in its original direction, the duron reads 44C idle(if the duron read 44C, imagine what the overclocked 2200 would have read. *groan*) I've yet to take it in to the store, but since the warranty is dead, and the company is ruthless, I think i'm screwed.

So, by my math, my figures are as follows:
$670 in parts I've had to pay to replace, not to mention the mobo and hard drive
2.5 months downtime in 17 months ownership
500 headaches!
And if you're actually still reading this, you either
A) feel REAL bad (like me) about hardware losses and listen cause you understand
B) have to read cause you're a moderator (pelly ) and are deciding the winners
C) ... have no life?

..That's my 2 cents

Eternally forbidden to own a good computer (no, wait, my dad bought a p2-266 w/MMX and 64MB SDRAM a while back!!)
-Ambian

Oh, I completely forgot to mention the Azura montor problem, and the fact that my ddr333 doesn't work at 333, but by now I've probably made everyone here feel depressed enough that they wouldn't even think of reading it..
*sigh*
back to tweaking
(only 4000 3dmarks to go until i don't need that 2200 any more! :P)

Well, my story may be a little out of place here but being as it fits the theme of cpu horror stories............

One week to the day my little bundle of love arrives from Newegg....

P4 2.8 chip
A gigabyte GA-8pe667 U mobo
Sapphire 9700 pro

and a new P4 cooler for my Koolance h20 case.

I ravage the box and confirm all my parts are there, then clear my work area for the construction of my dream system.

I take the Mobo out of the box then its on to the processor (here is where it gets ugly) The P4 comes in that ungodly hard plastic packaging that usually has me reaching for an exacto knife however, I don't want to trash the packaging just in case I have to rma it.

So I study the plastic package for a moment and decide its not the type that is sealed shut but the kind that has lock tabs.

I insert my thumbnail inbetween the packaging....... it's.....it's fighting me! Maybe it is sealed and not a pop tab....... Try a little more pressure............ P O P !!!!!!! The package opens up...out flying through the air goes my $430 processor.....clink...clinck....clink.... It comes to rest on a stove element in my kitchen. I can't bare to look!!

No chips or cracks at first glance ...Thank God !! Turn it over... HOLY **** !!! No less than 40 of the 478 pins are bent silly sideways... *cry*

After about an hour and a half of micro surgery with a jewlers loop and a tiny screwdriver they all seem pretty straight.

I place the processor in the socket (not without considerable resistance) and continue on, knowing that one or more of those pins just laid flat and are grounding out the whole thing.